EdgeCast Security vs F5 Networks

Amazon, Microsoft and Google are doing to Rackspace what EdgeCast, Amazon and Incapsula are going to do to F5 Networks. The EdgeCast “Defend” Solution is everything that F5 Appliances are not: cloud based, unlimited scalability and global deployment in minutes. F5 offers ADC, WAF, DNS Services and Firewall capabilities in an appliance. EdgeCast and Akamai offer many of the same features in the cloud. Although F5 Networks acquired Defense.net, they still lack the CDN infrastructure to properly mitigate security threats at the edge, on a large scale. EdgeCast offers DDoS Mitigation Services, WAF, and DNS Protection at 60+ POPs. EdgeCast Defend scales on demand, and it’s not limited by appliance bandwidth cap. If F5 Networks fails to adapt to the new reality, and offer a truly global on demand edge security solution at locations comparable to CDN providers, life is going to be extremely difficult in 24 months.

Issues with F5

1. Scaling requires the purchase of BigIP appliances
2. Under F5 model, attackers can bombard origin servers at the application layer
3. F5 & Defense.net is limited to a few scrubbing centers
4. No control over the middle mile
5. Architecture is anti-cloud requiring onsite hardware